CloudLinux Releases New Inode Limits for cPanel

Share Article

CloudLinux gives shared hosting companies more control over server usage with a new way to limit disk usage through files and folders.

Now, we are able to limit abusive users without investing our own time and money into developing technology. Best of all, the solution can limit abusive users while remaining flexible enough to handle the occasional inode usage spike.

Princeton, NJ (PRWEB)August 27, 2013

Innovative shared hosting operating system (OS) developer CloudLinux (http://www.cloudlinux.com), announced today the release of a new feature that can be used to limit inodes. Using CloudLinux Inode Limits for cPanel, web hosting providers can effectively limit the number of files and folders on a per account or per package basis, making server performance more consistent. This is especially useful for hosts who market services based on ‘unlimited’ disk space, but want to prevent customers from filling up the hard disks.

“Hosts that use CloudLinux can get more from their shared hosting servers,” says Igor Seletskiy, Founder and CEO at CloudLinux. “By allocating specific hardware resources to each account, servers can be filled to maximum capacity without the risk of poor performance. At CloudLinux, we are always finding new ways to help hosting companies take control of their servers, and our new Inode Limits for cPanel provides an alternative way to limit the way storage is used.”

With CloudLinux, shared hosting accounts are contained in Lightweight Virtual Environments, or LVEs. LVEs can be controlled from a convenient, easy to use interface called LVE Manager, where limits can be set for a wide range of hardware resources. This range now includes inodes. An inode is a data structure that stores useful information about files and folders. Counting the number of inodes in a given partition is an effective way to gauge the number of files and folders currently stored. As a result, setting a per package or per account limit on the number of inodes helps keep customers within their allocated disk space quota. As a way to maintain consistent server performance, inode limits are a welcome addition for CloudLinux and cPanel customers.

“The inode issue had been bothering us for a long time,” says Ivan Rakić, CEO at Servikus LLC. “We had some abusive users and some badly written scripts that affected performance across entire servers. We actually started to develop our own solution for inode limitation in cPanel but, just a few days into development, CloudLinux announced that Inode Limits would be coming to the OS. Now, we are able to limit abusive users without investing our own time and money into developing technology. Best of all, the solution can limit abusive users while remaining flexible enough to handle the occasional inode usage spike.”

In some instances, shared hosting customers exceed their resource allocations because they need to decompress an old backup file or test new software. To accommodate webmasters who temporarily exceed inode restrictions, the new CloudLinux Inode Limits for cPanel can be configured for a “soft limit,” where customers may pass the inode limit for a short period of time. In addition, the extension can be launched in “hard limit” mode, where it would be impossible to create new files and folders after allocations have been used. Finally, with support for popular web hosting control panels including cPanel, webmasters can monitor their current inode usage at any time.

“Fundamentally, the Inode Limits Extension is designed to offer flexibility,” says Seletskiy. “While it works on a disk quota level, it is not always appropriate to limit storage itself. Our customers now have the opportunity to restrict data in a different way, on a files and folders level. This is an effective way to eliminate the bad neighbour effect, improve server stability, and maintain excellent service for every webmaster.”

As CloudLinux continues to grow in popularity, the development team continues to implement new features and extensions to put even more power in the hands of shared hosting companies. The launch of Inode Limits for cPanel gives those companies yet another way to get more from their servers, without compromising on performance.

About CloudLinux
CloudLinux was founded in 2009 to address the distinctive needs of web hosting providers. The company’s headquarters are in Princeton, New Jersey, and its development team, composed of employees with an appreciable proficiency in the hosting business, is based in Donetsk, Ukraine. CloudLinux is a stable, privately funded company geared toward providing the ideal operating system (OS) to make even the most intricate and divergent hosting needs more straightforward. The company’s flagship OS is optimized to help hosting providers deliver more stable shared hosting services, with account isolation and resource allocation on an OS level.